One-on-one competition of skill, knowledge and practice in all forms is highly rewarding. One of the ways this can be expressed is through one of my favorite pastimes, fighting games.
Fighting games are a niche genre of games originating from the era of arcade machines in the late 1980s early 1990s. Competition in early arcade days was mentally and physically challenging. To participate you would place a coin on the arcade cabinet and wait in line. Once there, you would put in a coin for a match and play your opponent to first to two rounds, 99 second per round. If you lost, you had to place another coin and get in line if you wanted another match. If you won, you could stay on the cabinet and your next opponent would insert the coin to start the match. The people who became good could stay on the cabinet for the whole day if they wanted to and to beat them you had to be better.
As games became more available through home console systems and arcades became less popular, fighting games made their transition to home consoles and as a result fighting game enthusiasts build controllers for their home machines that resembled the arcade set up, commonly called arcade sticks. The portability of both the games and the controllers made it easier to host competitions at venues other than arcades and competition started to grow notably in Japan and the USA. Other countries around the globe that previously had arcades also were able to do the same.
International competition for fighting games was also at its beginnings and offered one of the most iconic videos in fighting game history: EVO Moment 37. By 2009, the release of Street Fighter 4 on console showed a major boom of popularity of fighting games and gained a larger audience. Even with this new interest, fighting games still suffer from a lack of mainstream popularity that other video games might have, but once invested fighting games are in my eyes the most rewarding to play.
So why do I like fighting games?
High-speed chess: Fighting games are fast. You and your opponent are making many quick decisions to try and get the upper hand. Your goal is to win and your opponent is the only thing in your way. How are they moving? How are they reacting?
Learning and Improving : You can play just for fun if you want, but you can optimize and learn something new constantly if you are willing to pay attention to yourself, your character, and your opponent
Additionally I've published a student project report on the Fighting Game Community. Go check it out here our digital sources library , the publication itself (if you cannot access, try this link) and a video on the topic here: